Regret
by Alunabelle Night Shadow
Summary: "There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were." - Dwight Eisenhower. Warning: OC Death. Dark themes, Rated T for safety.


**Regret**

**Warnings**: Character Death (OC), Post-series, Suicide. Mentions of abuse, self-harm and depression.

* * *

The news wasn't surprising to anyone.

But it still managed to _shock_ them.

Chiron had announced it, hours before they normally woke up. Even before, they'd all known something was wrong, they could feel something strange in the air.

'I am afraid, we have lost one of our own.' He said quietl.

Then Dionysus spoke, 'Coby Sharpe has died, suicide. The burial will be tomorrow after dinner. Training will be held off for the next three days.' It seemed even the normally grouchy, sarcastic Mr. D had been effected by it. He actually got the boy's name right.

Coby had been an unusually quiet kid. Unusual because he was a son of Ares, and they were generally loud, obnoxious, confrontational children.

But not this one.

He had been intelligent, and cute. He was too young to be considered 'handsome', but many of the girls found him attractive. Paticularly the Aphrodite girls (and even some guys), many had joked how typical it was. Like father/son and mother/daughter. But the thirteen-year-old had been cute, definitely. He had the endearing little brother-like qualities. He had been average height, slender and not build like his half-siblings. Dark auburn, shaggy hair that framed his face wildly, and dark chocolate brown eyes, they had been full of life at first.

But then camp changed him.

Despite his likable personality, he had been bullied seerely before being brought to Camp HalfBlood, not that it ever mattered. After the accident happened anyway...

He and his mother had been struck by a reckless driver involved in a street-race. After that he became a more withdrawn, shy person.

He started to get picked on (mostly by his own older brothers) because he was physically not very strong, he never lasted long in a fight. However, over the last while he'd gotten even more and more sullen and quiet, ignoring everyone around him. He even ran away once, they looked for him with no luck. But a few weeks later he returned on his own, messy from travel, and he walked with a limp, claiming he'd just been mugged or something.

No one bought it.

Just like no one believed that when he bolted up from a nightmare it was about his mother.

It was shortly after he came back to the camp that Clarisse noticed the scars on his wrists, fresh and old. If she hadn't known him to be one of the most non-aggressive people she knew, she would have thought it had just been from battle practice.

She had walked in once, and saw him looking in the mirror, tracing the single bruise left on his cheek, it had lasted longer than any of his other injuries. She already could tell why.

"Was it Father?" she asked, already knowing the reason. She knew Coby had only ever met him, Ares, their father, once. Shortly after he first showed up. And the biker was less than nice to his quite, kind son. If they met each other totally alone, and Ares saw him falling apart. It would not have been pretty...

Coby flinched at that, and quickly dropped his hand to his side, "I told you, it was just some punk kid I ran into. Don't worry about it, Clarisse." he quickly turned and rushed out, and she caught the pained, fearful look in his eyes as he departed.

She should have told someone then.

They'd all known already anyway. Ares had hit them before, only when he got really angry. And for some reason (not to hard to guess why) he constantly seemed to push Coby around the most. He was hardest on him, crueler to him, but he didn't know what to say or do to get his father's approval.

So when they had heard rumours about him dying, about how he had cut his arms open, slowly bleeding to death in the forest, people believed it. But that didn't make it any easier to think about. Sure, they weren't naive enough to believe that Ares was the only reason he did it. But dealing with all of this at a young age, losing your mother, friends and home, having your bullies turn into powerful older siblings and verbally (and physically) abusive fathers trying to tear you down for struggling.

It was just too much for one little boy to handle...

After all, how much pain could someone have been made to feel that would have them wanting to die? There was something incredibly sad about it.

And it left them all wishing that they had done something more.

They were family after all, all of them related in one way or another.

They had let a family member down.

* * *

The next day came and went fast, and the burial for Coby Sharpe passed in a slow-motion blur. Clarisse was the last one standing there, "Goodbye, Coby..." she said quietly, and placed a Nightshade flower over the fresh patch of dirt, for some reason that had been his favourite flower.

She turned and walked away, unaware that half the reason one of the few people she loved had died was standing right by a tree, silent and waiting.

A moment later, the sound of heavy combat boots falling lightly against the grassy ground was all that could be heard, stopping before the temporary headstone.

"Farewell...,, my Son. I never expected this to happen... You were always the most rational one, intelligent and careful. i Shouldn't have pushed you as hard as I did... I did though, because I thought needed it." Came the unsually quiet voice, which normally was loud and malicious. Now it was low, rough and...pained? "I should have realized. I'm sorry, Coby."

He turned and slowly walked away, wishing more than other that was what he had done when he'd seen his young so nwandering along in the wilderness. They'd both have been better off.

This was one of the few things that would haunt the God of War for the rest of his immortal life.

* * *

**Review, please?**

**Thanks! **

**I edited this by the way. Because I got the idea yesterday at anout one in the morning, so I did a rough draft and published itm fully intending to fix or scrap it in the morning. But I noticed I got a review (thank you, btw!) and decided maybe it wouldn't be so bad, as long as I changed it up a bit.**


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